


the things you weren’t meant to hear

by rubbercip



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, ch395 spoilers kinda, iwaizumi the relationship guru, tendou antics, ushijima doesn’t understand emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24531604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubbercip/pseuds/rubbercip
Summary: tendou forgets to hang up the phone after their calls; ushijima finds himself listening in on tendou’s daily life
Relationships: Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 251





	the things you weren’t meant to hear

Once moving to California, Ushijima had found that the loneliness he’d been expecting to come hadn’t quite hit him. Meeting up with his father had helped, and making a friend out of Iwaizumi as well as a few others in his classes had been easy as well. But the things he accredited to having helped most were the multiple video calls a week from Tendou.

They had worked out a bit of a schedule; when it was lunch time for Tendou, it was nearing time for Ushijima to head to bed. They found that this was the prime time for their calls to take place - Tendou would make his instant ramen while Ushijima did his nightly routine and got ready for bed. The calls varied in length, and some of them featured some of his old teammates; when Tendou roomed with Eita for college, it was just a given that Ushijima would see him once in a while. Not that he minded, though.

Tendou and Ushijima talked about just about anything. Tendou made sure to keep Ushijima up to date on everything, like what was going on back at home and what was going on in the mangas he was into lately. Ushijima mostly listened, but did talk about how he was adjusting and how his new team was. Tendou and Eita made sure to make sly comments about the new team just to tease him, but Ushijima assured them that this team was as good as he said they were. 

One thing Ushijima had learned about Tendou since these calls started was that Tendou was absolutely terrible at hanging up the phone.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want the call to end, he just simply forgot to hang up. Ushijima would see Tendou get up from his bed to go get a snack from their little kitchen area, or see him walk off into the bathroom, or even just roll over and fall asleep. Ushijima would watch to see what he did, tell him to turn his phone off, then either get the call ended or end it himself. While he found himself ending it himself pretty often, he didn’t really mind it. It was rather endearing, and he couldn’t complain when he was the one to nod off without ending the call first once or twice.

Days, weeks went by. It was nearing spring when another one of their calls took place; Ushijima was already in bed for the night, and Tendou was waiting for Eita to get back to their dorm with their lunch. Tendou had been avidly talking about his newest manga endeavor when the sound of a door opening and closing came from his end of the call. 

“Ah, Semi’s back! Get some rest, Wakatoshi, we can talk about this tomorrow!” Tendou smiled, waving and saying goodnight again before he dropped his phone on the bed and went offscreen. Ushijima said goodnight, smiling just a bit at how his phone was still left on. He went to hang up, but Eita’s voice from the other side of the call got his attention.

“Ushijima?” Eita asked, and after Tendou said a soft ‘yeah’, he asked, “Did you talk to him yet?”

Ushijima felt his curiosity peak just a little bit. Of course they’d talked, hadn’t they just been on a call for a few hours? But to his surprise, Tendou let out a laugh that sounded a bit hesitant. “Ah, that… nah, I don’t wanna put more shit on his plate for him to deal with.”

Eita clicked his tongue, then the rustle of takeout bags was heard. “You can’t keep ignoring this, Tendou.”

“I know, I know,” Tendou said, “Just… the time isn’t right.”

A stretch of silence occurred. Ushijima found himself holding his breath, wondering what was so important that Tendou had been hiding. He wasn’t sure of anything that it could possibly be, so despite his better judgement, he kept listening. 

Finally, Semi sighed, “Tell him soon. Pining like this isn’t good for you, and it’s not fair to either of you.”

Things were quiet again, for a moment. Then, Tendou said almost inaudibly, “He needs to stay focused on his volleyball career. Telling him how I feel, I… I don’t wanna get in the way of his dream, Semi. Can’t do that to someone I love, y’know?”

Ushijima fumbled quickly to turn the call off, hating that he’d definitely just eavesdropped on a conversation he definitely shouldn’t have heard. He was dense when it came to emotions, but Tendou had just practically spelled it out for him, that he was in love with him. Ushijima just stared at his phone, then looked up at the ceiling as he laid back on his bed. Now knowing Tendou’s feelings towards himself, he had a very important question to ponder; how did he feel about Tendou?

-

After a night of little sleep, Ushijima ended the next day with Iwaizumi, grabbing dinner after they both got done with practice. They went to a local diner, just making small talk about their respective practices as they waited to have their order’s taken. But Iwaizumi was perceptive, and noticed that Wakatoshi was a bit off pretty quickly.

“Something up?” Iwaizumi asked after he took a sip from his water, “You seem… upset. Did something happen at practice?”

Ushijima took a moment to go over his thoughts and try to phrase them correctly. They were both rather straightforward guys, so there was no point in lying when he actually wanted to talk about this.

After a deep breath, he met Iwaizumi’s eyes. “Tendou forgot to hang up on our call last night.”

“He does that every time you call,” Iwaizumi answered easily.

“He told Eita he’s in love with me.”

That seemed to grab Iwaizumi’s attention. He tilted his head a bit to the side, hesitating a bit like he didn’t know how to respond. “... wow. Wasn’t what I was expecting,” he said honestly, “Are you… are you sure you heard him right?” Ushijima just nodded.

Iwaizumi then asked, “How do you feel about him?”

‘I’ve been wondering that all day,’ Ushijima wanted to say, but ignored that feeling and instead answered, “I am unsure. I don’t fully understand how romantic feelings differ from platonic ones, but I do know that I see Tendou as someone of a different level of friendship than anyone else I know.”

“Well, then maybe give yourself a few days to figure out how you feel. But you need to tell him you overheard that; it’s unfair to keep that from him,” Iwaizumi advised, and Ushijima nodded again.

The conversation after that turned into Ushijima asking Iwaizumi how he knew that he liked Oikawa, which turned into Iwaizumi going red and trying his best to explain that he kinda always knew he liked Tooru since they were kids. The little quirks Oikawa had made him smile, the way he found himself staring at Oikawa for longer than friends normally would, how hard the separation had initially been on them. They all contributed to showing how deep his love ran. And as Ushijima listened, he made the connections between how those two acted and how he acted with Tendou. How he’d always indulge in the manga Tendou was reading, how he found himself always in awe of the art Tendou made to put on his walls, how they’d call every week and how Tendou always forgot to hang up; he really liked all those things, he loved all the aspects that made up Tendou.

Needless to say, after their dinner ended and he ended up alone with his thoughts again as he laid down to sleep, Ushijima couldn’t stop thinking about Tendou. About how excitable and positive he always was, how passionate he was about his interests, how he scrunched his nose when he was working on very precise aspects of his drawings. About how he was in love with Ushijima; that part baffled him the most. How long had it been? How long had Tendou felt like this, how long had he been hiding that? Ushijima felt like he was going to implode, and it’d been a day - how had Tendou even lived with this on his own?

Ushijima rolled over in his bed once, twice, three times. It was useless, he couldn’t sleep. He looked at the clock that read three in the morning. After doing the quick time conversion and figuring out that Tendou would be out of class by now, he called him on facetime, hoping his friend wasn’t busy.

It must’ve been his lucky day; it wasn’t long before his friend’s mess of red hair appeared on the camera, Tendou smiling as he looked into the camera, only looking slightly confused. “Wakatoshi! What are you doing up at… four in the morning?”

“It is only three,” Ushijima answered, then sighed, “Are you busy right now?”

“Not really. Goshiki is coming over for dinner, but that’s not for a while; are you ok? Did you have a nightmare?” Tendou asked, now looking worried, “Do you even get nightmares?’

Ushijima felt himself smile just a bit at Tendou’s antics. “I am ok, I didn’t have a nightmare, but I do get them from time to time. I called because I need to tell you something rather… important.” 

Tendou’s face showed that he was getting more and more confused by the minute. He nodded slowly, “I’m all ears, what’s up?”

“You forgot to hang up on the phone yesterday after our call,” he said simply, and when Tendou stiffened slightly, he knew that Tendou probably understood what this was about. He decided to keep going “I… heard what you said about me.”

“... oh…” Tendou answered, “I, uh… I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

Ushijima frowned at him, “How long have you felt that way?”

“... second year, maybe earlier?” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ushijima asked, eyebrows furrowing as he watched Tendou look more and more embarrassed by the second.

Tendou sighed, no longer looking at his phone but choosing instead to stare at the art on his wall, “I… you aren’t… I didn’t know if I had a chance for you to feel the same. You’ve never taken interest in anyone like that, and… I didn’t want to lose you, Wakatoshi…”

Ushijima stayed quiet for a moment, taking a moment to process that. Then, he said softly, “I didn’t know what romantic feelings felt like, so I never talked about them. I am still unsure, but… after taking today to think about it, I think I may have them for you as well, Satori.”

A beat passed. Then two, then three. Tendou’s face scrunched up in confusion again but slowly started to melt into a look of realization.

“You… like me too?” He asked quietly, just wanting to make sure he’d heard that correctly. Ushijima nodded.

“I think I do,” Ushijima confirmed, “I think I always have, but I never knew what the feeling was.”

Tendou began to laugh a bit, and Ushijima swore he wiped a tear or two away; neither of them commented on that. “You’re somethin’ else, Wakatoshi.”

“I’ll be home next week to come visit everyone for a few days,” Ushijima said, “I would like to see you, if it wouldn’t be an issue with your schedule.”

“I think I can make time for you.” Tendou beamed, still smiling brightly as he spoke.

They talked slightly more about what might become of this before Ushijima finally headed to bed. Within the next week leading up to their reunion, they still had their phone calls, they still constantly talked, and Tendou still forgot to end their calls. Nothing could’ve made Ushijima happier.

**Author's Note:**

> ushiten slaps sry if i was a bit ooc i wrote this last night at 4am lmao


End file.
